Irish Government Survives Vote of No-Confidence Over Handling of Fuel Tax Protests, but Minister of State Resigns, Accusing the Coalition of Losing Touch With the People

 

Former Irish Minister of State Michael Healy-Rae (center) – photo by Houses of the Oireachtas/Wiki Commons

Ireland is erupting against the government.

We have been following the massive protests taking place across Ireland on TGP, as angry citizens protest the cost of fuel and the government’s suicidal energy policies.

Yesterday, the Irish coalition survived a confidence vote in Parliament over how it handled a week of disruption with demonstrations blocking access to oil supplies, causing gas pumps to run dry and creating massive traffic jams. 

Associated Press reported:

“Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin defended his coalition government by saying it had acted to end the ‘destructive blockade which threatened to cause much deeper damage’.

The 92-78 vote in support of the government preserved his leadership. If the confidence vote failed, his government would have been forced to resign and Parliament would have either elected a new prime minister or called a general election.” 

Protests have been ongoing since April 7, with slow-moving convoys clogging roadways, and with truckers, farmers, and taxi and bus operators blocking key infrastructure.

The government sent the police and the military to break the blockages, but that only further inflamed the Irish people.

“Demonstrators called for price caps or tax cuts to alleviate soaring fuel costs they said would drive people out of business.

After the vote, a crowd of protesters gathered outside the Dáil, the parliament building in Dublin, chanted ‘sell out’ and ‘get them out’.”

But the victory in Parliament came with losses for the government, as the Minister of State for Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and the Marine, Michael Healy-Rae, announced his resignation, accusing the coalition of losing touch with the people.

RTE reported:

“He said that he could not, in his heart, vote confidence in the Government.

[…] This was a bombshell moment in the Dáil as Mr. Healy-Rae took most people gathered by surprise, as he quit the Government and his role as Junior Minister for Agriculture.

[…] As his brother Danny Healy-Rae watched on from the opposite side of the chamber and his son from the public gallery, he said that the sight of grown men crying over the cost of fuel left him with no choice but to leave the Government.”